Palm Sunday The Gospel Matt. 21.v.1 Thursday Meditation: A Plaine Path-way To Heaven Thomas Hill 1634

ORRENTE, Pedro 
Entry into Jerusalem 
c. 1620
GOSPEL (Matt. 21:1-9) 
At that time, And when they drew nigh to Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage, unto mount Olivet, then Jesus sent two disciples, Saying to them: "Go ye into the village that is over against you: and immediately you shall find an ass tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if any man shall say anything to you, say ye that the Lord hath need of them. And forthwith he will let them go." Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: "Tell ye the daughter of Sion: 'Behold thy king cometh to thee, meek and sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of her that is used to the yoke.' " And the disciples going, did as Jesus commanded them. And they brought the ass and the colt and laid their garments upon them and made him sit thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way: and others cut boughs from the trees and strewed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before and that followed cried, saying: "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest."
THURSDAY

Christ no doubt, might have sought any of the company whom had pleased, to seth the Ass, and her Colt for he was of that esteem with the people, that they would have made him their king but he would of purpose send of his own disciples, and not one but two with the errand, that finding the beasts tied, they should untie them, and bring them unto him & if any should ask why, to answer, our Master or the Master of the Cattle (for it may signify both) hath need of them, and he will let them go. First we consider that the Apostles, seeing the applause of the people to be such as they meant to make they Master their king, they might think to be great men with him, and especial favorites of his, as they were ready to believe, at other times and namely St. John and James the sons of Zebedee, who when they heard Christ talk much of his kingdom, thinking it to be an earthly kingdom, desire that they being his kinsmen, might sit the one at his right & the other at his left hand in his kingdom, and therefore they might thing much to be employed in so base a Service as to go and fetch a fely Ass & he Colt. 

Wherefore Christ peradventure perceiving their thoughts, I would humble them so much,as to command two of them to do it, to cure them and their fellows of their ambition, as he now doth oftentimes the like, in that, and other cases with his best friends and therein shows his friendship most of all: as also to teach them, that his kingdom was not of this world. Likewise he sent two to be a comfort and help to one another, for which cause, and for the exercise of the offices of the charity mutually one to another, Christ sent his seventy two disciples by two and two into diverse parts of the world to preach the gospel; from whence Religious men borrow their fashion of sending their subjects by two and; when they have occasion to go abroad.

In that the Ass was ties and the Apostles were to untie her, we may consider how sinners are fast tied in the bonds of sin, and that Christ hath most mercifully ordained his priests the Successors of the Apostles, to loose them from the bonds and bondages thereof to serve him, who is their true Master, and adorneth them with the garments of his grace, as this poor Ass was with the garments of the Apostles.

Likewise, that all the worldly commodities God had endued with all, when he sendeth for them, either by sickness, loss, mischances, and adversity, persecution, necessity of the poor, or other necessary good uses, are his, he being supreme Master of all, and therefore we ought not to tie them so fast unto us, by affection, no not our life but that we must be willing to untie them and let them go, to serve God the Master thereof when he sendeth forth, as he did here for the Ass and her foal telling his Apostles and in them us, that the Master sending for his own because he had need, was so good a reason that no man of reason, could deny, especially if the ass was common for the necessity of the poor, as some hold opinion she was, and as money and worldly means ought to be.

Comments

Popular Posts